The Shadow Sorceress

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Secca could sense the flush and embarrassment of the younger sorceress. At times, it was hard to remember that Richina was still several years shy of a full score—until she asked a thoughtless question that betrayed a lack of experience at variance with her very womanly appearance.

  “Is that why the Elahwan vessels cannot travel farther south than Ilygot?” Richina asked quickly.

  Before they had left the small town of Zedal that morn­ing, Secca had used the scrying glass to seek out the lanc­ers of Loiseau that followed her to Encora. The glass had shown that the two remaining companies were sailing southward on three of the Elahwan vessels and that there were no Sturinnese forces near the ships. Secca only hoped she had phrased the spell correctly enough that there would be none near by the time the three vessels neared llygot.

  “Yes,” replied Alcaren. “The secrets to the channels are held most closely. Also, it would be difficult to maneuver more than a ship or two in the shoals and the shallows, and even the most experienced Ranuan captains will not traverse the East Sound in rough waters or in storms.”

  "Encora is well-protected,” offered Palian easily.

  “With our past, could we afford otherwise?” countered Alcaren.

  “After more than a thousand years?” questioned Secca.

  "Whose fleets blockade our ports?"

  At the dryness of Alcaren’s tone of voice, Secea laughed, even as she considered the memories of a war so violent that scars remained everywhere throughout the land after scores of generations. “You make a good point, over­captain."

  The light breeze was chilly, but not unbearably cold, as the column began the descent into the valley that lay be­tween them and the white walls of Encora.

  “We should dispatch the messengers now, should we not?’ asked Secca.

  “It would be best,” answered Alcaren.

  While they had already sent one set of messengers from Ilygot and while it was almost certain that the Matriarch already had known of their journey and approach to Encora even before those messengers had arrived, the cour­tesy of a more formal and immediate notification was certainly due. Secca and Alcaren had earlier decided on sending eight more lancers, four from the SouthWomen and four from Secca’s diminished forces.

  "Messengers to the fore!” called Alcaren.

  The eight riders rode forward along the shoulders of the road, passing the players, and then Richina, Delvor, and Palian.

  “You have your scrolls?" asked Secca.

  ‘We do, lady,” answered the squad leader a South-Woman in a crimson-trimmed blue riding jacket.

  “Convey our regards to the Matriarch and to all others as well,” Secca continued.

  “Yes, lady . . . overcaptain.”

  Secca and Alcaren watched as the lancers trotted ahead and down the road that angled northward on its initial de­scent toward the flatter land of the valley below.

  “You are certain we will be welcome?" Secca asked in a low voice.

  “Who else can use sorcery against the Sturinnese?" re­plied the Ranuan.

  “With what I have seen in the last few days, I would question whether the use of sorcery is that welcome.” After a moment she added, “Unless the sorcery is performed beyond Ranuak.”

  Alcaren shook his head ruefully. “I am most certain the Matriarch would have few difficulties with that and would support any such efforts.”

  Secca still wondered as she shifted her weight in the saddle, her eyes going again to the distant white stone walls of Encora.

  104

  By late afternoon, heavy gray clouds had drawn across the sky, and a fine mist sifted down, carried by a light wind out of the south. Each fine droplet felt like a tiny point of ice on exposed skin. Secca had refastened her jacket and pulled the green felt hat from her saddlebags. Alcaren rode bareheaded, but Secca could see the redness from the damp and chill on the tips of his ears and on his cheeks.

  The road itself was similar to the main highways in De­falk--- stone-paved and straight, raised a half-yard above the plain through which if passed, and very slightly crowned so that rain would run off the broad and graveled shoulders. The thoroughfare was far, far older than any of the stone highways in Defalk, as the fine cracks and more than occasional replacement stones indicated. Those darker replacement stones were also much smaller than the massive slabs that represented the original paving.

  Each of the scattered dwellings that flanked the highway was also of stone, with a slate roof. Stubble in the fields had long since been turned under, leaving neat rows. Al­though the dwellings varied in size, all were scrupulously kept, as were the outbuildings. Perhaps because of the cold, Secca saw few souls out, and those she did see paid little attention to the column of riders plodding westward toward Encora.

  The column was less than two deks from the base of the ridge holding the city walls when Secca could make out through the mist both a crossroads coming directly from the north, and more than a score of riders reined up in two lines just beyond the crossroads.

  Alcaren gestured toward the riders waiting at the cross­roads ahead. “We have an honor escort waiting.”

  “Let us hope they are just an honor guard,” replied Secca.

  “Were they not, the gates would be closed, and there would be no guard at all,” suggested the Ranuan.

  Secca debated taking out the lutar, then decided against it, since the rain would do it little good, and displaying it would only offer offense. She did begin a gentle vocalise.

  Alcaren looked at her, eyebrows raised.

  ‘I prefer not to ride into a strange city with no defenses at all, overcaptain.”

  “You have a certain ability with a blade, lady.”

  “It is not sufficient to make a would-be enemy hesitate, as you well know.” She paused, then said with a smile, “Your blade might, but not mine."

  “I would not wish to cross blades with you again, my lady.” As Secca turned, he added, returning her smile with one of his own. “Not if you were angry.”

  Secca laughed gently, enjoying the moment of banter, but she continued to warm up until she had ridden to within a hundred yards of the riders beyond the crossroads.

  The twelve lancers that Secca and Alcaren had sent as messengers waited, mounted, on the flat of the road below the inclined and paved road that wound upward through four switchbacks to the gates above. Behind the twelve were two companies of Ranuan lancers wearing pale blue riding jackets identical to the one worn by Alcaren—one company on each side of the road.

  The overcaptain of the Ranuan lancers rode forward and halted her mount. "Lady Socceress! The Matriarch wel­comes you and your company to Encora.”

  Secca reined up the gray and inclined her head. “Thank you. As you know, we come in friendship, and in hopes of finding a way to defeat the Sturinnese?"

  Behind her, Richina and the other riders slowed to a halt.

  “The Matriarch knows such and welcomes you as friend and ally. All Eacora is open to you.”

  “Thank you, and the Matriarch.”

  “We are here to escort you to the guest quarters and barracks.”

  ‘We appreciate your courtesy and grace.” Secca nodded again.

  One company of the Matriarch’s lancers swung onto the road to lead the way up the road to the gates above, while the second waited and then brought up the rear.

  Alcaren’s SouthWoman squad leader eased her mount up beside the Ranuan overcaptain. With her was Delcetta, the SouthWoman company captain.

  “Overcaptain, ser?" offered Captain Delcetta.

  “Yes?" replied Alcaren.

  “The Matriarch has requested that we remain under your command until the problem with Sturinn is resolved. The South Council has concurred.”

  “I appreciate the support of the Council,” Alcaren said.

  So did Secca, especially after riding through Ranuak. The SouthWomen seemed more likely to support sorcery than many throughout the land.

  With a nod, the captain
and the squad leader turned their mounts.

  While she rode up the inclined road toward the gates, Seeca studied both the road and the walls as best she could through the mist. The road narrowed slightly, and indented stone rain gutters appeared on both the uphill and downhill sides, gutters that drained into stone channels at each of the four switchbacks. Once Secca neared the top of the ridge, the scale of the walls became even more apparent, ramparts of gray-white granite that towered a good fifteen yards above the rocky ground out of which they rose.

  Secea held herself ready to use sorcery, even without the lutar, should it be needed, but those massive walls held no guards, nor were any evident near the gates. The single gate opening was but four yards wide, and framed with massive stone pillars, two on each side. Each pillar had been cut as a single unit. Between the pillars were the edges of the gates, each nearly a span in thickness. Each gate was designed to slide out from between the pillars, and the city walls behind them, along stone channels more than two spans deep and across the gate opening, one be­fore the other, so that when the gates were closed there were two thicknesses of timber, each tightly anchored in stone on three sides. Where the channels crossed the road­way, they were covered with thin oak planks to ensure neither horses nor people broke legs in them.

  Secca studied the stone of the walls as the gray mare carried her past the unguarded gates. She nodded.

  “Lady?” asked Alcaren.

  “The stone work was accomplished with sorcery.”

  “You recognize the method?”

  “I have some familiarity with it. I don’t think those gate pillars could have been put there any other way. Not that I know of, anyway.”

  “That may be, but it might be best if you did not voice that too widely.”

  Secca snorted. “Use the fruits of sorcery, but do not mention it?”

  “You have seen what sorcery has done to this land.”

  “Like any tool, it can be used for good or evil. One should not blame the tool.”

  “Blaming the tool is far easier, especially when the user may have had little choice.”

  Secea did not reply. She understood Alcaren’s point, but also felt that those who restricted what tools could be used often deserved the results that befell them.

  Once through the gates, the Ranuan lancers turned slightly right and began to follow a gray stone boulevard that, within fifty yards of the wall and gate, arced downhill through a grassy park toward the dwellings and structures of the city below. For the first time, in the park, Secca saw hardwoods and fruit trees, rather than the endless conifers that had seemed to populate the land of Ranuak all the way from Ilygot.

  “Are there many such parks in Encora?’ she asked.

  “One cannot go a dek in any direction without finding a large park, and less than that for small greens,” replied the overcaptain.

  To the southwest, Secca thought she could make out long stone piers at the edge of the dark circle of water that formed the harbor, and seawalls to the east of the piers. At least two vessels were tied up at the longer pier, and there might have been others, but the taller structures near the center of the city blocked a full view of the wharfs and piers.

  Below the park, the boulevard straightened, pointing like a quarrel toward the harbor, and settled into a gradual decline toward the water. Raised stone sidewalks flanked the boulevard, and the dwellings on each side were gen­erally of two or three stories, built of stone, with covered balconies looking out in front, and over rear garden court­yards.

  Less than four blocks from the base of the park and toward the harbor, Secca glanced up at the topmost bal­cony of a three-story dwelling on the left side of the bou­levard. There stood a figure in a dark hooded cloak, the face lost in the hood and the gloom of the growing twi­light. A Lady of the Shadows?

  Why?

  To warn Secca against sorcery?

  For the first time since they had begun to ride through Ranuak, Seeca noticed people who actually looked at her, and at the others, although indirectly. No one seemed to stare or study the column intently, but they were not tra­versing the city without notice.

  The guest quarters and barracks lay just on the northwest side of the boulevard less than half a dek from the harbor. They were so similar to those in Elahwa that they might have been designed by the same person, save that the walls of the structures were of the whitish-gray granite, and that a wall a good five yards in height surrounded the entire compound. The blue-painted iron gates were swung back and locked open. When the Ranuan honor guard, swung through the gates, the stone walls threw the echo of their hoofs on the stones of the drive back at Secca.

  The drive was flanked on both sides by a low boxwood hedge that did nothing to mute the echo of hoofs, and before the guest house itself was a circular rose garden, one whose roses had long since been cut back to ready them for the spring still many weeks away.

  Standing on the steps at the rear of the guest quarters was a tall and squarish woman in the pale blue of the Ranuan lancers, but with a single red rosette embroidered upon each shoulder of her riding jacket.

  Alcaren reined up and bowed. “Commander.”

  “Overcaptain.” The commander smiled at Secca. “On behalf of the Matriarch, Lady Sorceress, I bid you and all those with you welcome to Encora. The Matriarch offers her hospitality and support, and assures you that you will lack for nothing as you prepare to deal with the Sturinnese invaders.

  “We are pleased to be here and greatly appreciate your support and that of the Matriarch,” replied Secca.

  “We are even more pleased to welcome you.” The com­mander bowed deeply. “Once you have rested, the Matri­arch looks forward to meeting you.”

  “As I do her,” Secca replied, wondering how long be­fore the meeting would actually take place.

  105

  Secca stood over the small round conference table in the main chamber of the Matriarch’s guest quarters, hold­ing her lutar and looking down at the scrying glass laid in the center of the table. She studied the image in the sil­vered glass. The Sturinnese vessels appeared where they had been for weeks—south of the harbor of Encora.

  After singing the simple release couplet, Secca laid the lutar on the table and walked toward the middle window of the quarters’ main chamber, halting well back so that she would not be that visible from the open gates or from the boulevard itself. The air was so still that the dismal gray mist and fog of the previous days continued to hold Encora prisoner. She could only see the vague outlines of the warehouses that fronted the stone piers less than half a dek away.

  After a time, she spoke to Richina, who remained beside the table. “If we are not summoned in the next day or so, I will see if Alcaren can arrange for us to travel the western bluffs overlooking the channels south of the harbor.”

  ‘Why has she not met with you?” asked Richina. “The Matriarch, I mean.”

  The older sorceress turned. “She cannot be that hasty.”

  “You have traveled across half of Liedwahr, and now...“ Rlchina shook her head.

  “I am a sorceress, and they fear sorcery,” Secca pointed out. Have you not seen the scars of sorcery upon this land?”

  “I have seen things which the Ranuans claim are scars of sorcery.”

  “Do you know of any other way to build roads with such large stones? Or the walls of this city?"

  Richina glanced down at the floor.

  “I cannot but worry about those who fear sorcery,” Secca said slowly. “If the Matriarch waits to see me, so that none will claim she rushes to greet a sorceress, then their power may be great.” She glanced at Richina. "Per­haps you should spend some time with your glass and try to see what you can discover about the Ladies of the Shad­ows here in Encora."

  “I will try, Lady Secca.”

  “Good.” Secca paused. “Will you send word that I would see Overcaptain Alcaren and Captain Delcetta?”

  Richina’s eyebrows lifted.

  �
�I doubt the SouthWomen—or the good overcaptain--­have any love for those in the shadows.” Secca concealed a wince at the way has words had come out. More than once, she had been accused of being in the shadows.

  “Yes, lady.”

  When the door closed behind Richina, Secca replaced the lutar in its case, and then seated herself behind the working desk. That morning, the scrying glass had shown her that the remaining two companies--- and the mounts for the under-strength company—had landed in Ilygot and were riding southward. Lord Fehern still held the lands around Envaryl, and it seemed as though the Sturinnese were no longer attacking. That disturbed Secca, although she could not say why, unless the Sea-Priests had decided to wait for better weather in the spring.